Chapter 13
Thirteen
Mira
I stood on the stairs, waiting for my name to be called. Master Derek was on stage along with Professor Holland who was handing out diplomas. Nerves danced in my belly despite the heaviness in my chest as I looked out over the crowd watching us.
There was a possibility of me collapsing and ruining everything.
Even though I felt okay right then, I didn’t know how I’d feel up there when I was given my diploma and held it for the crowd to see.
Because there was no family out there for me.
My mom was gone. I had officially graduated before she passed away peacefully with me at her side, but she missed the ceremony by two months.
It was okay though. We’d done a little fake graduation ceremony with Master Derek and Professor Stahlbaum at the care home.
We’d even had cake and a glass of champagne.
So here today. This was for them. For the professors and Master Derek, who’d helped me get here, who’d needed me to do this, so I’d have no regrets later.
And there were no real regrets. I’d made peace with my mama.
And she told me that Wes had been right.
That my feeling of being judged and not good enough was never her intention.
That I was the best thing that had ever happened to her, and she considered raising and caring for me a privilege—her greatest gift.
And if she’d seen what she’d been doing to me, she would never have done it.
Because all that shit, the making sure I could take care of myself, pushing me to stand on my own two feet, it was more about her than it was about me.
It was her way of dealing with her losing me, feeling like she’d accomplished the one thing in her life that mattered, raising me.
“Mira Wilcox.”
I swiped away a tear that slipped out and walked up onto the stage, smiling as wide as I could because my mom may not be in the audience today, but I knew damn well she was watching me from somewhere.
“Congratulations, graduate,” Master Derek said, smiling down at me.
“Thank you, Sir.”
“I’m most proud of you, Mira. Congratulations.”
“Thank you, Professor Holland.”
Turning to the audience, I held my leather book open, showing off my degree.
The crowd where my fellow students and friends sat went wild and I grinned through my tears and stared at the rest of the families out there, pretending mine was out there too.
And that’s when I saw two people I didn’t expect. And both made my stomach drop.
My grandmother. A woman I’d talked to for the first time ever a few months ago after I ran out of Master Derek’s office. A woman I’d never expected to see again.
And Doctor Wesley Lake. I’d thought he’d left. I’d heard he was going back home to Canada.
Someone handed me a mimosa an hour later after all the speeches were done and the crowd had broken, everyone finding their people.
“Drink up, Mira. It’ll take the edge off.”
I glanced to the person who put the glass in my hand and smiled. “Thanks, Clee.”
“You look like you’re ready to collapse. Are you okay? I can totally blow off dinner with my folks. I’d actually like to get them out of here before they accidentally hear or see something they shouldn’t. Do you want to go back to the apartment?”
I had one of those now. On the Ranch. And I shared it with my bestie Cleo.
“You know they’re not going to see or hear anything they shouldn’t. Master Derek and the staff took every precaution. No one, absolutely no one, is going to wander into the Dungeon and be scarred for life.” I chuckled but it sounded off even to me.
Maybe I’d imagined seeing both my grandmother and Wes.
After all I’d been standing here for over twenty minutes, and no one had approached me.
And it was a hard day. Maybe not the hardest, but hard, nonetheless.
I had worked my backside off to get here, so my mom could see me in the cap and gown, and she didn’t get to be here.
“I think I want to be alone. I might go back to the apartment and paint. I always feel better when I paint.”
“You sure?”
“I am.”
“Look at Silas,” Cleo said pointing at our friend who’d just introduced his Domme to his mother, and his mother and his Domme, to his new girlfriend. He looked terrified and yet still madly in love. It was adorable.
“Mira?”
I jumped at the hand that tapped my shoulder. When I turned, it was my grandmother standing there. I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t disappointed that out of the two people I’d seen in the crowd, that it was this one who found me and not the other.
“Hi,” I said somehow managing to sound both affronted and nervous at the same time.
“I know you’re probably surprised to see me since the last time you saw me was when you banged on my door and ripped me a new one.”
The phrase “rip me a new one” was a weird thing to come out of the very rich and sophisticated-looking woman who stood before me.
“I think my mom’s calling me,” Cleo said, her brows in her bangs as she slipped away. She knew I had this, because I did.
I had indeed shown up on the woman’s door two months ago and I had torn her a new one.
I’d told her exactly what she’d done to my mother.
I told her how we’d lived and how despite my mom growing up feeling unloved, that I’d never ever had to feel that way.
And that actually, I’d never felt like I was missing out without a grandmother in my life because my mother loved me enough for an entire family.
I’d also told the old woman she was deplorable, but that it was something she’d have to deal with when it was her time to meet her maker.
But that in the meanwhile, she might want to get her ass to the hospice and make amends with her daughter since she was the one who’d get there first. And if there was any justice, my mom would be the one to kick her ass to the curb for being an embarrassment and sullying their good name.
The stoic woman with the hard expression had instantly broken down. She’d been living with regret for years. And when she had tried to contact my mom, she’d hung up on her.
The woman sobbed, telling me she’d shown up on our door and had been turned away, and that once she’d even showed up at my school and watched me play at recess and then she’d been issued a restraining order.
By the time she’d told me all her woes, I was a little more empathetic to her plight but not by much.
“I’m sorry if this feels like an ambush. I can be a little pushy, but I have good intentions.”
I crossed my arms, and she nodded as if she fully accepted that I had every right to turn her away. So she opened her purse and pulled out two envelopes. One was the kind that housed a greeting card, the other a letter. She handed them to me.
“I went to see your mother a few days after you came to see me.”
I pulled in a breath. “You did?”
She nodded and then a ghost of a grin showed up on her face. “I needed her to put in a good word for me with my maker after all.”
I didn’t laugh at her little joke, so she awkwardly continued.
“I made things right with her the best way I could.”
Anger rose in me like bile after a night of hard lemonade and spicy food. “How? How does one make up for a lifetime of rejection and neglect?”
“I told her I’d be there for you.”
I was taken aback.
“Not to take care of you, but to be here for you for her. To cheer for you when she can’t. To remind you how proud she would be as you move forward to accomplish your goals. To give you everything I should have given her.”
I don’t know how I managed to keep my tears at bay, she certainly couldn’t, but I did. “It won’t be easy,” I said. “I can forgive but I can’t forget. But if it’s something she asked of you, then I owe it to her to let you.”
“Thank you.” She took a tissue out of the pocket of her overcoat and dabbed at her impeccable make-up. “And congratulations.”
“Thank you.”
“I’ll call you? I’d really love to see more of your paintings. Your mother showed me the pictures she had on her iPad. You’re very talented. She was so proud. And she regretted discouraging you from pursuing it.”
I swallowed hard. “She was worried I wouldn’t be able to make a comfortable living off of it,” I croaked.
My grandmother, the woman I’d hated all my life but only met once two months ago, reached out and tapped the envelope.
“Your mother had dreams and because I wasn’t the supportive mother she needed, she never got to follow through with those dreams. So, I want you to follow yours instead.
And Mira, you will be able to live off your painting.
I know you will. I can see your success in your talent.
In fact, I’m so sure, I’ve put a little something else in this envelope. ”
I looked down at the pretty mauve envelope decorated with hummingbirds, my mother’s favorite, and when I looked back up, the old woman was walking away, standing tall and looking regal as she moved through the crowd.
And then my eyes fell on the letter and my name written in rough pain-filled script across the front.
I made my way through the crowd and all the way back to the apartment without being stopped by anyone else despite my disappointment.
The mauve envelope held a graduation card, with a very large check, one that I tossed aside like trash, because it was basically blood money.
But the other thing in the envelope was a business card of the owner of an art gallery in New York.
One I’d heard of. And on the back in a handwritten note, it said, I’ve seen pictures of your work. Call me. I’m very interested.
I gasped. And then, after several minutes of hysterical freaking out, I picked up the letter from my mom.
Dear Mira,
Congratulations on your graduation. I’m so proud of you. Yes, I told your grandmother about your graduation ceremony date, but no, it wasn’t at my urging that she attended. She actually asked my permission. Pfft imagine that. LOL.